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San Francisco, 3:19 AM
Sat Nov 28
17 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/06/09
BTW, can we fix this image system? It's really annoying to browse photos with. #ecology
11/06/09
11/06/09
I want in. #ecology
11/06/09
And that's how the Mayans will be proven right... #ecology
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11/06/09
I remember watching a video of a solar-powered plane in flight (probably posted on io9 a while ago... :P) It was amazing how absolutely silent it was while slicing through the air. The whole idea of solar-powered flight seems so dreamy and surreal -- not entirely practical, perhaps (at least at this early stage!) but beautiful and wonderful nonetheless. #ecology
11/06/09
11/06/09
(My apologies to IO9. I'm starting to talk like my step son) #ecology
11/06/09
07/28/09
07/27/09
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07/27/09
There are ways to make something like this work - you just have to keep thinking about it. In principle I agree with your comment, I just think that dead-ending it doesn't get us anywhere. :)
07/27/09
Plus what do we do with all the real trees that are already there? What is the possible affect the environment if we cut them down?
07/27/09
Outside of big cities, or especially in the midwest where real estate is more plentiful, there are few parking structures, and parking lots for miles and miles.
And really, its more of a proof of concept, because at the present tech level, those sculptures couldn't charge one car, let alone multiple cars.
07/27/09
Do you have any idea the type of chemicals that go into manufacturing a battery? It makes a nuclear powerplant look green (which it is by the way)
Not to mention the HUGE strain this will place on our already stretched infrastructure!
Or does nobody remember the rolling brownouts of the late 90's? and that was from one to many air conditioners running that summer!
07/27/09
07/27/09
The GENERAL public. I mean there's the public, and then there's the GENERAL public.
Or do you enjoy sitting next to a homeless man who just urinated AND defecated all over himself while being passed out?
Me neither, and I was the one who had to clean that mess up.
07/27/09
07/27/09
I mean honestly, if you're going to poo poo EV (which frankly, battery technology has come a long way and has a long way to go, and given the sheer number of sustainable methods you can use to charge those batteries versus the impact of harvesting the materials to go into a battery that will have years of use life I think one outweighs the other) and then poo poo mass transit in the same breath - the solution is what? Status quo?
07/28/09
"I am getting tired with people pushing electric cars as being green."
Of course, "green" electric cars are also mostly powered by 50-100 year old coal burning generating stations, very inefficiently. Not nearly as green as a modern conventional petrol vehicle, of course.
People don't care about reality though. Since they can't see where the energy for en electric car comes from, they can just pretend that they're "emissions-free" and go about their business of feeling superior.
-Kle.
07/28/09
"New cities and suburbs should be designed to favor public transportation, walking, bicycling, and EVs. "
No, they shouldn't. We don't live in a tyranny here, cities and suburbs should be designed they way people actually want them to be, instead of the way someone else thinks would be best for them.
Cars didn't create the current suburban/urban landscape, they merely allowed people to have things the way they wanted in the first place.
-Kle.
07/28/09
For a very long time in the US - with the exception of already-established cities (whose immense popularity as measured by population, by your reasoning is inexplicable) - what planners and developers decided is that people should be given low-density housing tracts separated from all other functions of life (shopping, public gathering, working, etc.). This was, of course, made possible in large part by the rise of the private motorized vehicle. But as cities such as Sacramento have recently demonstrated, when you build relatively dense settlements, close to a variety of services and convenient to public transportation, people flock to them. In fact, the real problem might be that because there are not enough of these highly desirable areas, the majority of home buyers are unable to afford them.
In short, you are mistaking what is for what is desirable, from a policy, human, and even individual perspective.
07/28/09
07/28/09
Well, it's one heck of a lot less efficient than burning the coal in the car...
Transmission losses are a pain in the butt.
The ICE isn't particularly efficient, though it is quite low-pollution these days.
-Kle.
07/28/09
No more than you are. There are plenty of people who don't want to live in cities, and very few of them have 1, 2, or 3 hour commutes to work. Those commutes only really exist in a handful of major urban areas in the US. Mostly ones where the road network is lousy.
There are also plenty of people who do want to live in cities, I don't think they should be forced to live outside the cities any more than the converse.
-Kle.
07/29/09
But I'm wondering, based on your initial comment in this thread - do you equate planning with tyranny? Because suburbs are some of the most heavily planned spaces in this country. To me, the way they were planned is pernicious. But planned they are, nonetheless. Planned by powerful men, with precious little input from the people who would come to occupy them.
(PS: I really wish editing comments wouldn't wipe out all the HTML, including the reference to the post I'm replying to.)
07/29/09
Honestly, if most of the people in a town can walk to work, that makes it seem like a tiny city, to me. I really prefer not having to see my neighbors unless I try.
I'm not very fond of planning at all, actually - it kind of destroys the concept of property ownership. In general, I prefer less planing to more planning.
What you think of as a suburb and what I think of as a suburb are different, probably because of where we live. Suburbs in places like DC and California are often indeed horrible places (I have family in LaJolla, so I'm out there pretty often, and DC is an easy weekend trip). I think that has more to do with the suffocating degree of government regulation in places like that than anything else, though.
Here in R.I. , suburb planning tends to be limited to commercial, residential, or industrial zone, lot size minimum x, all streets should be through streets w/o a variance.
We do have some of those horrible planned tract communities these days, but it still isn't the norm.
I concur about the HTML thing, the new commenting systems seems a little wonky in it's code.
-Kle.
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